Ghana can be war zone in 2012 - D.I Warns

The Danquah Institute, a liberal policy think tank, has warned that Ghana could turn out to be a war zone if posturing by some political parties as was seen in the 2008 general elections is repeated in 2012.

This was said at a press conference organised by the Institute yesterday, 7th of December to serve as a prelude to a National Conference on E-Voting to be convened in February of 2010.

Mr. Otchere-Darko cited seeds of electoral feud that were sown prior to the December elections in the minds of supporters of the various political parties with the intention of throwing the results of the elections into doubt.

He cited, as an example, the posturing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the main opposition party in 2008 as source of worry should other opposition parties seek to venture along that path.

The constant allegation that voters register in the Ashanti region was bloated, deploying of machete, club and stone-wielding supporters outside premises of the EC purportedly to pressurise the EC into declaring the results their way and issuing of a press statement a few hours after the voting closed declaring victory were but a few of examples cited by Gabby as a posture that was deeply worrying in the 2008 elections.

A press statement issued by Koku Anyidoho, then communications director of candidate Mills and now communications director of H.E Prof Mills, on the 8th of December 2008 with the caption, “We Shall Tolerate No Nonsense” sought to infer that the Electoral Commission and the New Patriotic Party were in collusion to rig the 2008 elections just as was done in 2004 and thus would not accept any results that declared the NPP as winning the 2008 elections. The Statement ended by saying “Dr. Afari-Gyan must be careful.”

“What happens if the NPP assumes a similar posture as the NDC did in the 2008 elections, and this time the NDC (the incumbent) wins with a very slim margin?” was a hypothetical question posed by the executive director of the institute.

Mr. Otchere-Darko stated that such an occurrence in future could drive this country to the brink of war and urged civil society organisations, government, political parties and the Electoral Commission to address issues regarding protecting the integrity of the elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification.

The Danquah Institute, he said, was advocating for the use of biometric registration and electronic voting for the 2012 and subsequent general elections as a sure way of reducing, if not eliminating, tensions as well as eliminating completely the incidence of spoilt ballots which he also said could be a clever rigging strategy associated with the current paper-based ballot system Ghana has in place.